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Page 1
* * * * *
TARIFF REFORM
Tunbridge Wells, October 24, 1907
As this is a Tariff Reform meeting pure and simple, I am anxious not
to approach the subject in any party spirit or in any spirit of
acrimonious controversy. The question is a difficult and complicated
one, and though I am a strong Tariff Reformer myself I hope I am not
incapable of seeing both sides of the case. I certainly should have
reason to be ashamed if I could not be fair to those whom, for the
sake of brevity and convenience, I will call Free Traders, though I do
not altogether admit the correctness of that designation. My views
were once the same as theirs, and though I long ago felt constrained
to modify them, and had become a Tariff Reformer some years before the
subject attained its present prominence in public discussion, it would
ill become me to treat as foolish arguments which I once found so
convincing or to vilify opinions which I once honestly shared.
What has happened to me is what I expect has happened to a good many
people. I still admire the great Free Trade writers, the force of
their intellect, the lucidity of their arguments. There can be no
clearer proof of the spell which they exercised over the minds of
their countrymen than the fact that so many leading public men on both
sides of politics remain their disciples to this very day. But for my
own part I have been unable to resist the evidence of facts which
shows me clearly that in the actual world of trade and industry things
do not work out even approximately as they ought to work out if the
Free Trade theory were the counsel of perfection which I once thought
it. And that has led me to question the theory itself, and so
questioned it now seems to me far from a correct statement of the
truth, even from the point of view of abstract inquiry. But I am not
here to engage in abstract arguments. What I want to do is to look at
the question from a strictly practical point of view, but at the same
time a very broad one. I am anxious to bring home to you the place of
Tariff Reform in a sound national policy, for, indeed, it seems to me
very difficult to construct such a policy without a complete revision
of our fiscal arrangements. Now a sound national policy has two
aspects. There are two great objects of practical patriotism, two
heads under which you may sum it up, much as the Church Catechism sums
up practical religion, under the heads of "duty to God" and "duty to
your neighbour." These objects are the strength of the Empire, and the
health, the well-being, the contentedness of the mass of the people,
resting as they always must on steady, properly organised, and fairly
remunerated labour. Remember always, these two things are one; they
are inseparable. There can be no adequate prosperity for the forty or
fifty million people in these islands without the Empire and all that
it provides; there can be no enduring Empire without a healthy,
thriving, manly people at the centre. Stunted, overcrowded town
populations, irregular employment, sweated industries, these things
are as detestable to true Imperialism as they are to philanthropy,
and they are detestable to the Tariff Reformer. His aim is to improve
the condition of the people at home, and to improve it concurrently
with strengthening the foundations of the Empire. Mind you, I do not
say that Tariff Reform alone is going to do all this. I make no such
preposterous claim for it. What I do say is that it fits in better
alike with a policy of social reform at home and with a policy
directed to the consolidation of the Empire than our existing fiscal
system does.
Now, what is the essential difference between Tariff Reformers and the
advocates of the present system? I must dwell on this even at the risk
of appearing tiresome, because there is so much misunderstanding on
the subject. In the eyes of the advocates of the present system, the
statesman, or at any rate the British statesman, when he approaches
fiscal policy, is confronted with the choice of Hercules. He is
placed, like the rider in the old legend, between the black and the
white horseman. On the one hand is an angel of light called Free
Trade; on the other a limb of Satan called Protection. The one is
entirely and always right; the other is entirely and always wrong.
All fiscal wisdom is summed up in clinging desperately to the one and
eschewing like sin anything that has the slightest flavour of the
other. Now, that view has certainly the merit of simplicity, and
simplicity is a very great thing; but, if we look at history, it does
not seem quite to bear out this simple view. This country became one
of the greatest and wealthiest in the world under a system of rigid
Protection. It has enjoyed great, though by no means unbroken,
prosperity under Free Trade. Side by side with that system of ours
other countries have prospered even more under quite different
systems. These facts alone are sufficient to justify the critical
spirit, which is the spirit of the Tariff Reformer. He does not
believe in any absolute right or wrong in such a matter as the
imposition of duties upon imports. Such duties cannot, he thinks, be
judged by one single test, namely, whether they do or do not favour
the home producer, and be condemned out of hand if they do favour him.
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